


Passing the Seasons

by KKaylaKayleb



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Seasonal Spirits and Guardians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 18:25:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3299483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KKaylaKayleb/pseuds/KKaylaKayleb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On this new world we are changed. It has been a long while, but we have fallen into the routine of our repurposed game powers and let our spirits take on duties to keep this new world and its people alive and thriving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Summer

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not putting anything off posting this. Updates on my other fics soon, but these have been sitting a while.
> 
> Link to illustration: http://kkaylakayleb.tumblr.com/post/110236030371/passing-the-seasons-artwork-1-chapter-1-summer

It has been a long while since you settled on this new planet, not gaining back the lives you had lost, nor becoming gods of this new realm, but you had made it your home as protective spirits and forces. You have had plenty of time to make this place your own with stories.

Once you came, people came too, or at least, the creatures on this planet you called people. They come in many shapes and sizes and colors, but they are yours, and they are the keepers of your stories. They have names for you, different from the ones you used to be called, but they fit, in strange ways. The name they have given you as protectors, is Tarlons. There are four classes of you, Tarlon Sprites, (for the seasons) Tarlon Giants, (for the forces) Tarlon Gates, (for the overarchers) and Tarlon Stills (for the constants).

You are the Tarlon Sprite of Summer, a protector of the season and it is your spirit that makes the season so bright and fierce and it is your job to watch over the people in this season. You are there for them when they plant their crops and give them what they need to grow, with help from a few of your friends as well.

The days are long, and the nights are warm, and you are there to help liven the hearts of the people in their work and with their families. You especially love the children; they remind you of a time long passed, when you could play such games, and sometimes, if they are all bright and the time is good, you let them see you and you play with them too. You do what you can to keep their knowledge of you alive, because you know how important it is to have something to believe in when your world is falling apart. Not that this one is, no. That isn't going to happen for thousands of millennia still. You know, you asked the sun.

You love seeing everything your season has to offer. Fresh fruit and vegetables, celebrations as often as people can stand and joy and the top of Hope abound. It is such a wonderful time to exist, and you have seen that in some places they have already made fireworks, which are always a treat to watch. You sometimes spend time talking with your friends who are around most (none of your Sprite friends can visit you in this world till season changes) and you love to tell them the stories you hear around the fires and houses at night. They tell stories of their lives, and they tell stories of you and your friends, teaching the children valuable lessons through the follies you had made as younger Tarlons. You are almost embarrassed to hear them now, but it is a good reminder of what you had learned and what made all of you special in this place.

You have been here for centuries at least, watching your people grow and change and learn and explore so much of this place, with still much to learn before they reach the point your once-home had been. Now their lives focus on agriculture, and village life, just expanding their trade routs to places they cannot see on the horizon. They make you so proud, and you always look forward to visiting them to see what new things they have discovered or made that will bring them joy.

You still carry a hammer with you. You chose one at the beginning of the summer, and let that be the way the season flows. You know your opponent will have done the same, come his turn, and the thought of his challenge raises your spirits again, a breeze running over the world, inspiring kites to lift and playfully nudging at the unprepared. The people don't mind though. They are glad for a breeze now, near the end of your season when you make things just a little hotter to give everything that last burst of life before your friend arrives to bring in the harvesting season. You like to leave a little breeze for him to chase while you are away, just like he will chase after your long hood when he returns.

You twirl your hammer, faithful Zillyhoo, and swing it down to the ground, hitting it to give the earth your last bit of seasonal power, and turn to face your opponent, patient in his tree, where he has always met you, since the beginning of this planet, and smile, cheeks raising to tilt your glasses into the glare of the last summer sun. You're perfectly fine with letting him take control now, but it wouldn't be any fun if you didn't strife for it just a bit first. You raise your hammer high, and laughing, you charge.


	2. Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Link to illustration: http://kkaylakayleb.tumblr.com/post/110236839336/passing-the-seasons-artwork-2-chapter-2-fall

By the time you manage to kick John's gangly ass back into your own realm you are tired again, which means he has improved, because you just spent most of his season asleep. If you weren't so busy in your season you might consider a nap, but you have to bring the season in quickly. There is only so much time until your second opponent arrives, and you want the people ready for it. You let the breeze John left linger a while, and when it circles back to tease you, you shove it, stirring its strength to rustle the leaves with a cool wind to let them know you are here.

You bring in the last seasonal rains, chilled but hearty, soaking into the earth and fattening the plants and softening the soil so they will be ready for the harvest. You may once have been an angry, stubborn child, but you would never let any real harm fall on these, the precious second chance creatures you had created. You were a better Tarlon than you could ever have been as a god to your humans, and you revel in your responsibility. You are kind to them, not because you pity them, but because you want to see them reach their full potential, and you love them for their endeavors.

These creatures are what you can suppose is the best from their predecessors, and from what your species had to offer. They have the spirit and will of humans, and the strength and diversity of trolls. It is a thrill to see how much they advance every year that passes, and you are always glad to come visit.

When the harvest comes you are everywhere, doing what you can to make sure everyone will be well off for the winter, and you love the celebrations they hold. They hang their best decorations and they paint their faces and make offerings of thanks to the Tarlons at shrines they place all over their towns. They only exist in one small area of the world now, but they are expanding slowly, so you still can be assured they will keep your memories alive in their culture. Not that they wouldn't, because you like to make yourself visable to them sometimes. You visit the sick with what your first creations call sun flowers, and you do what little you can to help while you ready them for the winter.

Turning the leaves became one of your favorite duties quickly once you became a Sprite. You got to rush all over the lands for a few weeks, like a morning job, taking just a little bit of green each time, filling vials of it to be used as paint when you got home. Stopping at night to visit festivals and sometimes sneaking in as yourself, sharing form with the people and perhaps telling a story to the children.

Once all the final harvesting finishes though, you make more rounds, carried on the breeze to let the last of the leaves fall, and gather their bright colors in vials to take home as well. Yellows and oranges and purples and sometimes stealing the dark blues of the trees who did not shed their leaves. It is only once you get back to your tree do you allow yourself some rest.

Seeing the world so barren makes your heart ache every year, without fail. You come in to such a beautiful, luscious place, with such abundance and potential, and it is your duty to take all of that away. Of course you know it is what needs to be done. If there was no fall to kill the land, then it would grow too used, and become infertile. Knowing does not lessen the pain.

Even at your age, sweeps more than you could even count, more powerful than you had any hope of being before, and a purpose in life that is one of the most important functions for this planet, and you still find the will to pity yourself. You begin to weep, rolling in large, black clouds, heavy with nearly winter rain. It is not only yourself that you pity though. You pity the people, for they have just finished a season of beauty and growth, and then a season of reaping the spoils of their hard work. You don't mean to coddle them, but you are soft hearted, and even though it is your job to slowly take the life away from this world so it can rest, you still want only their happiness.

The rain gets colder over days of drizzling showers, but eventually you sniffle, and take out your sickle, an old relic even compared to you, but imbued with magic that will make sure it lasts as long as you do. You sit in your tree, unfolding your wings and pumping a strong wind to signal you are ready to fight. You may be a Tarlon who weeps at the thought of snow, but that doesn't mean you won't stand to hold off the chill of winter for even one more day. If it is for their sakes, it is worth it.


	3. Winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Link to illustration: http://kkaylakayleb.tumblr.com/post/110273964101/passing-the-season-artwork-3-chapter-3-winter

Let never it be said that Karkat, the Tarlon Sprite of Fall, was easy to subdue. You fought him for a week, day and night, through wind and rain and hail, before you were both too exhausted to continue, and you shook hands and happily sent him back home to bed. He had earned it, and let it never be said that you would not yield when he had proven himself worthy.

You take business over fairly smoothly when he has gone, busying yourself with dropping the temperature slowly, checking with your friend to see that all the animals have found homes for the season before you let the first snow roll in, just a light blanket to start. This year you want to be gentle with them.

You watch the snow fall, floating just above the ground as you watch the lands get covered in a white sheet, no ice yet, for their safety. You won't admit as much to your friends, but you care a lot about the people you have to watch over. There are only a pocketful of villages around, so their survival is of utmost importance now.

You watch them come and go about their daily business. Most were smart enough to know that the rains were the sign of fall's end, so they laid out their final offerings, got their supplies, and made their homes nest-worthy for the winter. The children are enjoying themselves outside for now, but with how early the sun sets you know they won't be out much longer. Not until their winter festival. They will have plenty to do indoors until then though. John said it was a good hunting season, and with how tired Karkat looked as he left you can assume there was some pretty hardy celebrating for the harvest festivals.

A few weeks in you bring in a larger storm, a foot and a half of 'this is why we built houses' to keep your charges in line. Considering its only a few days till the winter festival, they think you are either mad, or joking with them, and they hurry out to your shrines in their villages to lay out something for you.

You do have a wicked sense of humor, especially since becoming a Tarlon, but it almost kills you not to be able to eat in this realm when the festival happens. You let it warm up a few degrees and melt the worst of the ice and snow for the festival, and look forward to enjoying your gifts when you get home.

You end up spending the night making icicles for the people. The good long kind without all any nasty gook in the middle that makes people shy away. Watching kids take the suckers down to lick at is always a ball. One of the best traditions so far, you think.

You make a few appearances, sticking to the shadows during the brighter part of the day. Not that it matters, since everyone and their brother is wearing red in this season anyway. Most of it is paint, but a few of the villages have made a dye out of the local flora. You do your rounds, checking to see if there are any new faces, after all, a lot can happen in a year, and you lay a branch by each door with new members. You'd get flowers, but you have yet to find any flowers crazy enough to be in the weather you stir up.

The festival comes and goes, and you may take a form of one of their kind to lead a few stray party goers back to their huts. Its kind of nice of you, and you try to ignore the quiet snickers of your friends as you assist the people. Even a coolkid like you cares about these people. Like they have any room to talk.

After the festival things settle down for a while. The new year doesn't happen till spring comes, so the rest of winter is pretty quiet. You do what you can to make sure the people are safe while still doing your job. Keeping the world asleep until somebody gets nature off his lazy ass and back into the saddle. But he really only has one season to sleep, so you try not to be too harsh on the little guy.

Your favorite place to be is in the mountains, not just because of the wonderful view, but the peace and quiet of it all is so refreshing to the chaos of home and being a Tarlon all the time is actually really draining in season for you. You end up getting a little lazy and bring in a big slow storm to finish the year though. Kids are outside playing and everything is white everywhere and its fucking beautiful.

You spend the rest of your energy directing the wind, messing around with the temperature, and watching some birds when you aren't too busy. You lay your sword in the snow in front of you, just chilling a while longer while you wait for spring. Taking in the views with excelent clarity and 0% blindness thanks to your sunglasses. When Spring gets there, you toss him a glance over your shoulder, smiling, and taking up your sword once again.


	4. Spring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Link to illustration: http://kkaylakayleb.tumblr.com/post/110274883296/passing-the-seasons-artwork-4-chapter-4-spring

There are hardly any words to describe how much you love your job. Once Strider and you part ways you take only a day to admire the beautiful winter landscape before you bring the temperature up. Its also your job to wake nature again, so you go and get him up so he can bring the birds back north and you go to the villages.

People are thawing out too after a week or so, once the snow melts and the baby grass starts showing up they all start coming out a lot more. You used to like watching them from far away. Almost cloud level as you just admired their little marchbug bodies all over the ground, but you eventually found that you liked being there with them, watching their wonder as you brought spring back.

You use your psionics to wake up the plants, gently nudging them back to life, coaxing annual seeds to sprout and trees to bloom again. It is always great to watch the faces of the kids though, as they took in the still new wonder of renewal of life after such utter deadness.

People go to your shrines right away, offering what they can, which is always appreciated, even if you aren't able to enjoy it immediately, and soon enough the equinox is on and they are having the new year celebration. Your favorite part is the decorations. All the best colors, red and blue and green, and lots of yellow and even gold in some places.

The other thing that you liked about this place was that the bees here were virtually harmless, as well as their byproducts. Sure they were a little big compared to the ones you had back home, but they made honey and they looked like yellow and black cotton balls, so you had no complaints. No stingers either, which was really nice. You liked to give them to people. Finding a hive on your home was really good luck to these guys, so you tried to make sure somebody in each village had one.

You make daily and nightly rounds everywhere to make sure the plants are growing, and there are plenty of places in this world where nature is abundant, so you like to influence those into getting in a growth spurt before the heat of summer. You let the dim glow of your psionics ghost over the ground like fog in the night wherever you are working, tickling the toes of children outside late to watch the fireflies. They are still your favorite gift and sometimes you let the children see you, tending the flowers or surrounded by the little glowing bugs at night. Sometimes you even let them ask questions, and give them answers that they won't be able to understand until they need to.

The warm rain rolls in, wetting the ground one last time before you have to go, and you smile, tending to the flowers and the trees. You never grow tired of being the Spring Tarlon, its the best job you've ever had. It even repurposed your psionics into a nonlethal energy supply, for which you are grateful. Its sometimes hard to remember the time when your powers were a weapon, but it is not hard to remember the fear you had of being a danger to your friends.

As you reminisce a breeze picks up, and you can tell its almost time to go as you let it lead you down to the valley where the meadow is. You meet John, and smile, talking with him in the night as you let the last of the spring energy flow out of you and into the land, making way for John's Summer abilities to kick in as you head home, the long way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it. I might add more to this AU sometime.


End file.
